Red Review

 There are no spoilers in this review.

PLOT: When his idyllic life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive.


THE GOOD: Fun, fun, fun. Red stands for "Retired, Extremely Dangerous" and it is a fun movie. Forget about realistic action films for a second and just kick back and enjoy this one. You are guaranteed to have a good time. I like to describe this movie as a combination of the Bourne series, Live Free or Die Hard, and some National Treasure. I went into this film not knowing too much about it, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. Your experience will probably be the same.

Acting. With a line up of Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ernest Borgnine, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Helen Mirren, and Richard Dreyfuss, you really can't go too wrong. Mary-Louise Parker and Karl Urban are also good. All of the characters are so funny and really bring something different to the film as they're introduced. Marvin Boggs has to be one of the funniest characters that Malkovich has ever played. That, and watching Helen Mirren operate a 50 caliber machine gun while barely blinking is effin' fantastic.

Action. There are some great action sequences in this film. Loved the part you see Frank step out of the moving car which is in the trailer. Love the fight scene between Moses and Cooper. Just an overall fast-paced movie.

Concept. I've never read the comic books, so I can't say anything about the film's adaptation, but I can say that I think it's a creative concept. Writers Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber do an acceptable job keeping the script lively and interesting, with one or two twists along the way.


THE BAD: Characters. With the amount of characters in the film, you don't really get to know many of them very well. You know they all have ties to Frank Moses somehow, but it's never really explained. Aside from Moses, they're all shallow characters that you end up not really caring too much about.

Romantic story. This is clearly the ploy to get non-fanboys in the theatre to see this movie. Unfortunately, I think it works a little. I saw a lot of women enjoy themselves. However, it leads me to wonder what the movie could have been had this been downplayed or taken out altogether.

THE END: Red is a solid popcorn flick. There's no doubt about it. It's not going to win any respected awards and it's not going to have the best reviews of the year (but they are favorable). However, I think it is one of those movies that I can just pick up and start watching at any point of its duration. If you go into the movie not expecting the best thing you've ever seen, then you'll come out happy. I hope that assures you that Red is a fun movie and nothing more. Catch it in the cheap theatres, or if you don't think there's anything else good out right now, see it in regular theatres.


DISCUSS: What did you think of Red? Have you read the comics? What has been your favorite action/comedy film of the year so far?